


Men in White Coats

by Sara Generis (kanadka)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Cognitive Dissonance, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Memory Alteration, Obsession, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 22:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7240165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/Sara%20Generis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our findings show that the subject performs very beautifully under stress, but not in the way in which it was hypothesised. This is largely due to the principle investigator, who could not keep himself from the subject. As a result, the subject had to be regularly rebooted. Long-term effects of this have not yet been fully explored, but von Bock et al (2014c) suggests that regular rebooting is unhealthy and fracturous for the subject's mind, as well as detrimental to the scientific goals of the project. The principle investigator was chastised against this behaviour, and after the resultant separation, the project and the subject became a resounding success, to be presented at the forthcoming Twelfth International Congress for Robotic Minds.</p>
<p>We are very proud of the subject.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men in White Coats

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a lark, forever ago. Was intended as a kinkmeme fill for brainwashing with bonus Russia as brainwashee but never posted. It has a lot less to do with brainwashing and a lot more to do with not-actually-legit cognitive science. Sorry in advance for the crappy not-real! science!

Ivan wakes up. He opens his eyes and looks around the room.

There, beside the door to the bathroom he shares with the adjacent unit, is the wardrobe. Next to it, below the loudspeaker panel, a little footstool on which is set two books. One is a treatise on algorithm analysis. Ivan has learnt many interesting things about code speed up but he is more interested in the way particular algorithms work. Sometimes it begins counter-intuitively and ends up perfectly sensible, like the way he thinks about manifold alignment. Those algorithms, Ivan is fond of. They remind him of the other book on the stool.

This other book he has dog-eared. It is a mystery novel that Eduard said he had to fight to allow Ivan to have. It isn’t exactly good for him to be filling his mind with the unclear and highly skill-based knowledge of semantics and prose - the point for this entire project, his entire reason for being at this facility with Eduard, is to become as logical as possible - but he loves the way he is held in suspense until the very end. He feels if he can put to rules exactly how the authoress does that, he will be helping with Eduard’s project. Eduard has said before that it is very like propositional knowledge, in that the detective uses deductive reasoning. That’s why Ivan can have this book.

Anyway, he’s almost finished this one. With every night he has ten minutes before lights out and every night he gets closer to revealing the murderer. Ivan has it narrowed down to the scientist or the bank teller. He’ll find out later tonight, then Eduard will bring him a new one, covertly, whispering, “You shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t, but I simply can’t say no to you,” while slipping it to him. 

It gives him a secret thrill, and this he does not tell Eduard, in case it’s too outside the scope of the project at hand.

Speaking of Eduard, there is a soft knock at his door. Without waiting for an answer it opens, and Eduard enters. “Ah! Good. You are awake,” he says.

“It is nine-am,” Ivan replies. “That is my rise-time.”

“Right on schedule, like clockwork. Your circadian rhythm has been very easy to program.” Unsaid is the _unlike the rest of you_ that Ivan knows is lurking behind a statement like that. Eduard does not mean to be so insulting, his sarcasm just comes naturally - 

\- No. Ivan mustn’t think like that. Eduard did not say it and therefore he did not intend it. No conversational implicatures. Nothing implied. Computers don’t understand implicature and neither must Ivan. 

“Did you sleep well?” Eduard asks.

“I did,” Ivan replies. “I think I dreamt. I do not remember it. But I believe the lessons from yesterday are stronger.” That is the purpose of dreams, for people like him. For neural nets it is when neurons are driven by recognition connections (input to output) are reinforced in a later stage of generative connections (output to input). This was in chapter 9 of his algorithm analysis book, which Ivan read three weeks ago or so.

It must have been three weeks ago. Sadly, Ivan does not have the episodic memory of reading this chapter, but that is not something he shared with Eduard, not wanting to disappoint him. He assumes that he must have read it because he is on chapter 13 of the book now and given the amount of time he is allowed to read his algorithm analysis book per day, chapter 9 was three weeks ago.

To be fair, Ivan cannot remember much from three weeks ago. Every so often he feels as though he has been...  _reset_ , in a way. He knows he has told Eduard of this before because he remembers how attractive Eduard’s face is when he does that little confused expression - his slender brows furrow, his thin lips draw together in a pout and his eyes shimmer beneath his spectacles.

He will have to tell Eduard about resetting again later today.

It is probably another algorithm, like the wake-sleep algorithm. Ivan will probably encounter it in chapter 14.

“Well, will you stay in bed all day?” Eduard asks.

“No, I will rise and dress,” Ivan states. Eduard does not move. “My wardrobe is on the other side of the room,” Ivan says.

Eduard looks at the furniture and then back to Ivan, in the bed. “So it is,” Eduard replies.

“I am naked underneath the covers,” Ivan continues.

“Yes, I imagine you are. We haven’t supplied you with sleepwear since May, you complained it was too warm.”

“You’ve never seen me naked.”

“This is true.”

Ivan says nothing. Eduard sighs. “Ivan,” he says. “You cannot assume I understand implicature. You are not meant to use implicature yourself. If you want privacy, you must be direct.”

“Please step out of the room,” says Ivan.

Eduard nods. “That’s better,” he says. He doesn’t move for a moment, and then accompanied by a red flush spotting his cheeks, he remembers. “I, ah, will wait for you outside,” he promises, and leaves the room.

Ivan breathes a sigh of relief.

–

Ivan thinks of Eduard as he goes about his morning ablutions, when he is not being accompanied by the man. It is embarrassing to think of him when he is already right next to him, Ivan finds, although he cannot yet explain the embarrassment. A computer would not be embarrassed. What is there to be embarrassed about?

Eduard is the lead scientist of the project for which Ivan has been volunteering for the past half-year. Eduard is incredibly intelligent, almost scarily so, and Ivan is happy to work with him because someone so intelligent finds it easy to become mechanical in thought processes and this means Ivan has someone who is often two steps ahead of him, ready to guide and lead.

Three years ago, Eduard told him, he won a grant to fund his research for cognitive science. The advances in building an a priori artificial intelligence, a truly intelligent agent with the powers of cognition and consciousness, had not been progressing smoothly, and Eduard had wondered if advances could be made through reverse engineering. Instead of trying to begin with something fully propositional and implement procedural knowledge, what if they began with something procedural and turned it propositional? Help the scientific world make a robot by computerising a human being.

And Ivan, strapped for cash, had answered the ad in the newspaper and the rest was history.

There are others like him, Ivan knows, but none of them are nearly as good as he is because Eduard elects to work with him personally. Eduard could have delegated all of his subjects to his team of scientists, but Ivan, he works with Ivan himself. Eduard has told Ivan before, it is because he shows the most promise.

Ivan attempts not to be too proud, but he can’t help it. The shine of pride is evident in Eduard’s face too, and he lets it inspire a bubbling sensation of joy in his belly every time Eduard says it. _The most promise. The best, the brightest. His shining star._

–

Nine-thirty is breakfast. On the plate there are two slices of toast, a softboiled egg, some fruit and a small bowl of cereal o’s swimming in milk. He separates the food on the plate in three distinct regions with his fork and eats them by region. He thinks about selection-sorting the cereal o’s by grain size as practice, but he only has a half hour for breakfast and it takes him 20 minutes to comfortably feed himself without any sort of games. So instead he looks at the speaker panel on the table and counts different ways of dividing the black dots.

Eleven am are exercise modules. If he does not eat too quickly, then by eleven am he can outperform specifications on exercise and then Eduard gets really excited.

–

Ten am is an hour of logic. Typically what he has been doing is the rudimentary basics, but he has passed from that into harder topics like semantics and applied philosophy. He does not remember doing the basics, but he must have done them because he needed things like _modus ponens_ to do the sorts of things he does now.

Sometimes it strikes him as strange that he lacks remembering learning these things. Surely it wasn’t ingrained in him? On this particular occasion he mentions it to Eduard.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Eduard says calmly. He places a hand over Ivan’s on the desk. It is reassuring and comforting although something about Eduard’s skin on his makes Ivan’s heart beat faster. Irrationally he feels like bolting out of his chair. In compensation, he forces himself to maintain his composure.

“Is it like those fellows I read about who can’t form episodic memories but still learn through practicing skills?”

Eduard sits back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. “You tell me,” he replies.

Ivan thinks for a minute, suspicious that this is a test. After a spell spent silent, under Eduard’s unnerving gaze, he begins, “It can’t be, because this project steers clear of skill-based learning and knowledge. But the experiential nature of episodic memories should be the backup, then, certainly? Unless you are conditioning me.”

“I’m not conditioning you,” Eduard reveals with a half-smile.

“Then it has to be the case that …” Ivan realises something quite suddenly. “Do you remember when I asked you about resetting?”

Eduard’s smile fades. “How do you remember about resetting but you don’t remember reading Aristotle four weeks ago?”

“It was -” He cannot possibly tell Eduard it’s something he remembers because of the cute perplexed face Eduard gives him whenever he asks. Eduard would think it strange. He isn’t supposed to attach aesthetics to things and anyway it would look too much like flirtation. Computers don’t flirt, so neither should Ivan (unfortunately). “Just something I dreamt,” he finishes.

Eduard gives him the perplexed look again and Ivan finds it difficult to concentrate. “It’s an algorithm,” he explains.

“Is it in my book?”

“Keep reading and you’ll see!” Eduard teases him.

“Then logically,” Ivan says slowly, “it must be the case that my memories are being removed.”

Eduard makes no move and continues watching him.

“That is the only option. It cannot be skill-based. You said it was not conditioned. I don’t remember the experience of writing truth tables. I don’t have any ….mental-movies, shall we call them. I don’t remember where I was when I learnt of propositional calculus, I don’t remember my pen on the paper as I took notes. I cannot recall the flash of insight I felt when I understood it. But I cannot possibly have been born knowing of these things.”

“You most certainly were not,” Eduard says. “Very well. You’re correct. Your memories are being tampered with. I’m afraid your progress outpaces your capacity. Once the lessons you need are learnt, they’re flushed out with the most important parts feeling like they’ve been with you since birth. It’s an effective system. Someday I will explain to you the finer mechanics of what’s going on - you’ll soon know enough that you could handle the machinery yourself.” Eduard looks at Ivan’s fingers where they rest on the table. “You have an exceedingly skillful hand, you would make an admirable neurosurgeon.”

Ivan doesn’t reply. It’s a compliment, certainly, but Ivan signed up to be a well-honed tool, not a fancy doctor. If this project advances as it should, neurosurgery will be like an art to him and therefore about as incomprehensible, no matter how easily he can identify parts of the brain.

“You can read, if you like,” Eduard says. “I brought your book.” He pulls out a small paperback from his labcoat pocket. The detective one, not the algorithms! This is a treat indeed.

“I thought we still have a half hour until exercise modules. Isn’t there a lesson I’m supposed to be learning?”

And Eduard grins. “I think you’ve already learnt it.”

–

The exercise modules are more for other volunteers (a side project a colleague of Eduard’s is working on - the effects of brain chemistry and wetware on neural nets), but to ensure control, all of them must participate.

Ivan doesn’t dislike exercises. He typically is asked to jog on a treadmill for twenty minutes before proceeding to the weightroom. He doesn’t mind jogging but he doesn’t like it much either. He feels like music would make it less of a chore and more enjoyable, with some sort of beat helping him put one foot in front of the other. He feels like he used to do that.

But he’s not nearly as heavy as he used to be, and that’s kind of nice for when he does his stomach crunches -

As he used to be…

An image strikes him suddenly, chubby thighs and forearms and rounded cheeks with big dimples and a slight gut, all of which he off-handedly remarks is ‘merely big bones’. But weight served him well in school, being bigger than the other boys had meant he could push them around …

… he used to be…

The panel next to his treadmill buzzes. “Ivan,” Eduard says, from it. “Are you alright? You’re lagging. I can turn the speed down if you need, if it’s too much, but you must tell me.” Eduard sounds worried.

“I’m fine,” Ivan replies, and speeds up his pace to prove it.

As he _must have_  been. He doesn’t remember being heavier. He doesn’t remember much from before.

He must have been heavier. Muscle memory proves strong, probably, and that’s where this thought is coming from. His brain then conjures up a suitable likeness of himself with an extra ten kilos. It must be that he remembers the feeling of being out of breath easily, of curling up in a chair and feeling extra inches of skin on his belly.

That must be it.

It’s good to run faster. He’ll get more out of weights this way.

Sure enough, when they proceed to the weight room, he finds in him an extra boost from the endorphins to exert himself. Not enough to damage but just enough to stretch a little farther than usual. It makes his physique appear a bit more impressive. Ivan wants to show Eduard that he isn’t wasting his time, after all.

Eduard watches him with a faint blush, breathing so deeply Ivan can watch his chest rise and fall from a room’s length away, through the mirrors. Ivan stares at him so hard he forgets that reflection means Eduard notices he’s being watched.

At the end of the hour, as Ivan is towelling off his sweat, Eduard makes some notes in his logbook.

–

Over lunch he gets to finish his book. It was the scientist after all. Ivan figures it out just before the big reveal and feels very smart and proud of himself.

After lunch he has three hours alone with Eduard. Before, Eduard told him, they used this period for teaching Ivan how to think like a machine would - it was a lot of formal logic - but Ivan has forgotten about those experiences.

Probably those memories were wasting space in his brain.

Now, only one out of every ten or so of these sessions is spent teaching. The remaining nine, Ivan helps Eduard, and they tackle well-known but ill-formed problems in philosophy, in an attempt to make philosophy seem less like the art of thinking and more like math. Ivan’s interpretation of things as a half-man, half-machine mentality existing in a physical form is valued and appreciated upon its own merit. 

Eduard tells him that it is because he as a project is progressing so very well but Ivan detects an undercurrent of highest praise that Eduard does not put into words. Eduard ceased being merely proud of Ivan some time ago. His joy is nevertheless present in his voice, in the warmth of it, in the way he smiles and the way his eyes shimmer with pride -

\- and of course that, like all hidden meanings, is part of an inference that Ivan must not be making.

It doesn’t stop him from looking Eduard directly in the eyes anyway, searching for the flicker and glow of success. It makes his stomach flip-flop every time he sees it and he has grown a bit addicted to the feeling of being a success.

Today they continue their work on Gettier problems and justified or true beliefs, where you build a conclusion to think that something is the case but at no point does your conclusion constitute actual knowledge. This, Ivan suspects, is a problem within a problem, because while they are tackling the underlying issue, they do so with a tool which purportedly is an example of the problem itself.

Because like the classic example, if one is driving past a barn and thinks, _that is a barn_  but is somehow misled by a hologram of a barn, then there is no knowledge of any barn, just belief.

So too with Ivan, who is at every appearance very human, looks human, acts human (to an extent), smells and feels human - but Ivan does not consider himself entirely human anymore.

He tells Eduard of this, and Eduard considers it carefully. “If that’s the case,” Eduard says slowly, “you would be the first true instance among a sea of reasonable holograms.”

“But behind the hologram barn,” Ivan reminds him, “there is an actual barn.” He gestures to Eduard himself.

“Not for much longer,” he replies. “I think you may have something there … I think you’re almost finished.”

This alarms Ivan and he forces himself to keep calm and rational. “The project will terminate?”

“This part of the project will terminate. We’ll have to have a second phase. You’ll move on to automating emotions. No project has ever done this part before.”

“And that, you will also be a part of,” Ivan supplies.

Eduard laughs. “I can’t imagine being away from something so successful,” he says, and Ivan elects to think that he means Ivan himself, not Ivan the project.

–

Later, after dinner, Ivan finds himself in the shower of the bathroom he shares with the adjacent unit. He scrubs the grout from under his nails and the crud from his body. He works hard, he sweats, he is at the end of most days very dirty and he knows that he doesn’t like to be unclean for very long.

And it feels good to work a lather through his hair, to massage his tired aching scalp with his fingertips. It is blissful; he is grateful for this feeling. He hopes that if Eduard pokes around with the nervous system, he will keep this functionality.

He notices something else as he soaps down his legs. There is water an inch up the tub. He finishes his legs, then his arms, then looks down again. An inch has become two. Ivan sighs, and presses the comm button on one of many panels (they are practically ubiquitous). This one is installed underneath the showerhead, where it receives little water and can function normally despite being an electrical appliance. They have probably waterproofed it anyway.

He waits a second before he receives a response. “Yes, Ivan, what is it?” comes the voice through the speaker. It is Eduard again. Ivan smiles.

“The shower is not draining properly,” he says. “I thought you should know.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Eduard replies through the device. “We’ll fix it soon.” And that is the extent of their conversation.

Ivan does not suspect that soon means a few minutes, and assumes he has time to continue washing. He lathers soap into his hands and rubs it between his legs, around his genitals, on his backside. He wriggles his toes with delight and they splash the puddle of water he’s standing in. It feels so very good to be clean.

The door opens. He can tell this by the brief darkening of the room, as the light source is blocked. “I’m sorry, this unit is occupied,” Ivan says blandly.

“It’s just me, Ivan.” It is Eduard again. Ivan smiles.

There is a screech as the shower curtain opens. Eduard looks at him, at his face, then at his body and finally at the puddle at his feet. “I see what you mean,” he says.

“Yes,” replies Ivan. “But you will fix it?”

“We fix everything, here,” Eduard tells him. Eduard does not move to fetch tools or give Ivan any privacy, however.

“You will fix it later?”

“Later,” Eduard echoes. “Yes, later.”

Ivan is familiar enough with Eduard to know he is being studied, now. This is like his exercise modules but more intimate because he is not wearing any clothing and Eduard can see every bit of him. Eduard studies his skin without betraying whether he approves or disapproves. Ivan wishes he had a blanket to cover himself. “The exercise modules are functional?” Ivan asks, worried and self-conscious.

“Ah, yes. So it appears. Very functional.” Eduard is silent, and then, “I had forgotten how well-built you are.”

“Forgotten?” he asks. “I thought you said you never -”

“Of course I’ve examined you before,” Eduard blurts, “any good computer technician worth their salt would take a good long look at the chassis.”

Ah. Ivan leans into the warm water spray and lets gravity do the work in sluicing the droplets down his chest, across his abdomen, along his thighs. Eduard can’t seem to pull away from the sight of Ivan in the shower and so Ivan suggests, fighting a blush, “Do you want to further inspect the hardware?” He does not mean for it to come out as flirtatiously as it does. Computers don’t flirt, after all.

Eduard’s eyes, magnetised to his body, dart up to his face and he gives Ivan a quick nod. “That is,” he coughs, “I think it’d be advisable. For the project.”

“By all means,” Ivan says, holding the shower curtain open for him, “I do not wish to hinder the advances of science.”

Eduard removes his clothing with haste. The grey cardigan is pulled off his shoulders and let loose to fall on the floor. Next is his tie; he loosens this and then yanks it over his head, pulling the collar of his white pressed shirt up. He unbuttons the shirt frantically, almost forgetting about the cuffs on the shirt sleeves, and untucks it from his belted khakis. He pulls this off his shoulders too. His shoulders are smaller, less broad than Ivan’s, his entire chest is less well defined, but not unmasculine. Ivan is the one with the exercise modules, after all, not Eduard. Eduard is busy doing science.

Eduard undoes the belt and then the fly of the khakis and then remembers he still wears shoes. He kicks these off without untying them and toes off the socks next, his pants loosened and exposing his underwear. His pants open like this makes him look disheveled and raw and Ivan is not supposed to attach aesthetics to things but if he had his way he would have Eduard wear his clothing like this all the time.

Then Eduard, his shoes removed, pulls the pants and underwear down his legs and steps out of them. He stands nude. Except for the glasses. Eduard appears to remember about these at the last second and brings his shaking hands to his face to pull the spectacles off his face by the lenses, his long fingers gingerly grasping the frames. He watches Ivan with dark eyes wide pupils as he does it, and his caution is forgotten when he throws them on the ground to land on his rumpled clothing.

“You’re hard,” Ivan states, when Eduard steps into the shower, into the puddle of water at their feet.

“So are you,” Eduard whispers. He draws the shower curtain closed with one hand. With the other, he dances the fingertips along Ivan’s collarbone from throat to shoulder. He cups the shoulder gracefully. Probably he is testing the firmness of the flesh, that is why his thumb brushes back and forth. He traces a line with the thumb down to Ivan’s nipple -

They both jump when he reaches it, Ivan because the sensation surprises, Eduard because Ivan jumps. “Are you okay?” Eduard asks.

“Yes,” Ivan pants. “That just - tickles. I didn’t expect that.”

“Good,” Eduard remarks, and then he brushes the thumb across it again. Ivan fights the compulsion to withdraw and crumple, and fairly soon he acclimatises to the feeling of Eduard’s touch. Eduard toys with the nub between two fingertips. “This is an added functionality,” Eduard explains. “You never used to feel so - sensitive.”

Ivan’s reply is a breathy gasp.

“I take it you like it?” Eduard asks. “I like it, too.” He touches the other nipple with his other hand and puts his thigh between Ivan’s legs. It makes their bodies closer, in full contact. Ivan can feel his own hardness on Eduard’s thigh; and Eduard’s on his thigh.

“You won’t get rid of that, will you?” he gasps. Eduard undulates his hips which makes their bodies brush up together. It is good. It would be a shame to lose it in future updates.

“On the contrary,” Eduard murmurs, “I think it is a useful thing to have a way to govern you so completely. The things I can make you do…” Eduard sinks to his knees.

He takes Ivan in his mouth, the warmth and wetness an incredible feeling on his skin. It pulls a shocked cry from him, louder than he’d intended, and his heart begins a frenetic hammering in his chest. If Ivan had thought his nipples were sensitive he had completely misjudged the semantic nature of the term 'sensitive’; this is so much more than that. Feeling robbed of fine motor control, he thrusts a little too roughly into Eduard’s mouth.

Eduard moans around his erection and places one hand on Ivan’s upper thigh for balance, curling around it just below his buttocks. The other hand he puts on his own erection and begins stroking himself. The details of this are largely hidden from Ivan’s view by Eduard’s mouth on him but Ivan has guessed what is happening by the muscle movements in Eduard’s arm.

The closer Eduard brings himself the more he moans around Ivan. The near-constant vibration hooks him towards orgasm, and as Eduard’s muffled cries grow louder around him, the feeling concentrates, intensifies in his groin. He tries to tell Eduard but Eduard is not listening, too far gone to be warned, and instead Ivan helplessly releases into his mouth.

Eduard keeps moaning, keeps stroking himself, even as the come spills past his lips and down his chin. Ivan registers the rhythmic splashing sound of Eduard’s hand fisting himself, making contact with the puddle of water in the tub. Ivan’s penis is oversensitive but Eduard does not let go of it until he comes. He spends himself into the water with his mouth full and continues to hum through the aftershocks, and after he has taken his mouth off Ivan, kissing Ivan’s inner thighs.

“I can make you do that again,” Eduard says, “you’ll be surprised at how _soon_ ,” and although Ivan does believe him he lets Eduard pull him out of the shower where they towel off. Eduard leads him to his room and has him get on the bed on all fours, his ass in the air.

“This won’t hurt,” Eduard promises, as he gets on the bed behind Ivan. He touches Ivan’s buttocks gently and reverently, then separates them with a finger. He drags it down the cleft to the asshole and traces around the muscle. Ivan stifles a groan.

His legs are pinned together from the strained effort to contain his vocalisations, but when Eduard coaxes them apart he sighs and lets them fall loose. Eduard cups his genitals, still sensitive, with his other hand, and Ivan cannot fight the pleading whine it pulls from him. This is when Eduard penetrates him, cutting off his utterance with a sharp gasp.  First a finger, then two, then something wet and firm that Ivan cannot identify for a minute -

Another hum and vibration.

Ah.

It is _his tongue_.

Eduard’s tongue maps out the path his finger took (his fingers still inside Ivan’s asshole) and flicks against the muscle, like teasing.

Ivan cannot speak. Ivan can hardly breathe properly without moaning aloud. It is a good thing he washed so carefully, he reflects, in one of his increasingly rarer moments of lucidity.

Then Eduard removes his fingers and tongue. “What,” Ivan mumbles, confused.

“I’ll be right back,” Eduard states. “Wait here.”

Ivan obeys. He does not turn his head to peek, because he was not instructed to, but he overhears Eduard walking to the bathroom, opening the door and then opening the medicine cabinet. Ivan is not sure what he is looking for but Eduard must have found it because he closes it a second later and walks back to the bed. Eduard deposits a small opened pot of vaseline on the bed by Ivan’s knees. Ivan stifles a shudder.

“I thought it would be more comfortable with this,” Eduard explains. Then he reinserts his fingers into Ivan. They are greased and a little cold but warm readily.

“Isn’t it necessary?” Ivan asks. Eduard presses further, then curls his fingers up experimentally. Ivan cannot stifle his moan or slow his trembles. He thought he was still too sensitive but evidently his penis disagrees and slowly throbs its way back to hardness, an aching weight between his legs.

“Necessary?” Eduard repeats. “I suppose if that’s what you want me to do.” Eduard leans forward and adds his tongue. The two fingers inside him, touching him where Eduard has learnt is particularly good for Ivan, and the tongue against them, against his asshole, drive him mad.

For a few moments Eduard tortures him with this alone, the ecstasy nearly too overwhelming to be arousing until Ivan shakes on his forearms where they support the majority of his weight and his hips push back against Eduard’s face and fingers, a plea for more.

“Is that what you want me to do?” Eduard asks, resting his cheek on the swell of Ivan’s ass.

“Aah,” Ivan says, “please, please!” He pushes back to drive Eduard’s fingers further inside him.

“Come now,” says Eduard, swatting his ass with a hand lightly. “No implicatures. You want something, ask me directly.” He twists his fingers inside Ivan and through the intensity Ivan manages to howl an apology. “Because I could make you come just like this -”

“No,” Ivan gasps, “fuck me, please, do it. I want it. Not with your fingers, use your cock, please, do it!”

Eduard kisses the small of his back and whispers, as he separates his fingers inside Ivan, stretching him, “That’s better.”

He keeps Ivan on all fours. Through a quick glance back Ivan finds Eduard jacking himself off enough to regain hardness with the vaseline, and then he slides in. Ivan closes his eyes.

The sensation of being stretched by something so intimate - a part of his body, _that_  part of his body - is not new but not old. Where does he know this from?

“Have we done this before?” he asks.

Eduard pushes in all the way and then says, with a strangled moan, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pulls out and pushes in again and sets a pace slow enough that Ivan feels every inch sliding in and out, again and again.

It feels good. It feels brilliant, he forgot (didn’t remember) how this felt to be stretched and fucked and he likes it, he always has. Every time they fuck Ivan spreads his thighs wide and tilts his ass up so that’s what he does now -

\- Every time?

But they haven’t done this ever before, Eduard has never seen him naked?

…Eduard is lying to him. If he could only see his eyes, he’s sure he’d be able to distinguish truth from falsehood.

“Wait a second,” Ivan says, as Eduard is thrusting in deep - too deep, he angles himself and it shoves his erection against a part of Ivan that makes him burn and shiver and almost makes him come. “Stop, please!” he moans.

Eduard stops instantly. “What’s wrong?” He sounds worried. His hands on Ivan’s hips hold him more gently, and to be soothing, he brushes the fingers back and forth.

“I want to see your face,” Ivan pants.

There is no reply for a second, during which Ivan worries Eduard won’t let him, but then Eduard pulls out. He bends over Ivan and places a kiss on his shoulder blades. He caresses Ivan’s arm and says sadly, “I can’t say no to you.”

Ivan flips over. With his legs in the air, on either side of Eduard’s body (one propped up on his shoulder), he says, “Like this, yes, much better.” It’s not graceful and looks foolish but that doesn’t matter. What he wants right now is Eduard inside him, making him writhe.

Eduard thrusts in and complains, “I can’t so easily get the right angle like this.” Ivan, personally, thinks it feels just fine but Eduard pulls out and pushes in again and tries tilting his hips more. It does feel fractionally better. He’ll figure it out, Ivan is certain. Eduard is a scientific genius, after all.

“That’s okay. You think it will take me much longer? I’m excited enough by you, with me, like this,” he confesses. Ivan lifts his legs a little higher. It lets Eduard get more purchase, deeper thrusts and - ah! there it is.

Didn’t take him long at all, as though he knew exactly where to go all along. Surely that is no coincidence.

Eduard avoids his eyes as he fucks him, keeping them shut closed. Ivan studies him carefully, watching him try to defend against orgasm until after Ivan has come. It’s attractive.

He’s not supposed to attach aesthetics to things but how can he deny his admiration for Eduard’s bright face, red cheeks and sweat-moist bangs clinging to his forehead? His brows are drawn together again, in an expression not unlike a frown, wearing the pleasure Ivan’s body gives him so openly on his face.

Ivan puts his hand around his cock and begins stroking himself off against Eduard’s thrusts. Yes, he finds Eduard attractive - he has figured out this much - but there is more to it than a pretty face. Ivan has a thing for smallish, bookish, quiet boys, and that was a dictionary definition of his lithe young scientist friend for years.

…Years. They’ve known each other a long time.

Haven’t they?

Eduard changes his angle again. It makes Ivan cry out and Eduard slows his pace so it doesn’t torture him by a prodding or poking, more gentle, as the head of his penis inside Ivan makes a slower, softer contact with hypersensitive nerves. Before he realises what he’s doing Ivan is already moving back upon him, trying from his position to get purchase and insist himself deeper onto Eduard’s cock.

They haven’t always been fucking - Ivan wasn’t very nice to Eduard when they were boys - not that this is recompense, Eduard is too careful and thoughtful a lover for revenge, and anyway, this doesn’t feel like revenge, it feels like joy and blissful wonder. And he’s wanted it so long - desperately jacking himself off at night to boys like Eduard back in his school days.

Which he never did. Didn’t he?

But this also isn’t the first time, is it?

_…years?_

The only answer he gets is Eduard’s frantic cries.

Is it? The more he touches himself the closer he gets to orgasm, the more he’s convinced…

When they were boys? School days?! How long has he known Eduard? _Years!_  He thought, he had answered a want ad in the newspaper, he came to a facility, he met a young man with a serious clinical gaze and an eye for analysis, and he’d said - _long time no see?_

This particular revelation coincides with orgasm and it hits him like a freight train, practically pummelling him. He clenches his fist around himself and for a brief moment, feels weightless and suspended in a long-lost lover’s arms.

Eduard’s face when he comes is what cements it for him. He arches, pushes himself into Ivan as deep as he can get in this position - which is surprisingly deep, with one arm wrapped around Ivan’s leg, resting on Eduard’s shoulder, and tenses with a loud groan.

Today is a day for revelations, it seems. Not only has his memory been tampered with but this also isn’t the first time they’ve done this. It can’t be! He’s heard those cries before.

This isn’t the first time he’s slept with Eduard. He can feel it.

And the longer he has Eduard’s cock in his ass, the more the muscle memory seems to agree with him!

Eduard pulls out with a sigh. He falls on Ivan’s chest. Like this, Ivan can feel his heartbeat against him. How many times have they felt that?

“Too many,” Eduard replies, running his fingers over Ivan’s chest back and forth, and Ivan realises he’s said the last bit aloud.

“I don’t understand,” whispers Ivan.

“It’s unfortunate that this part of the experiment isn’t working very well,” Eduard says. At Ivan’s sigh he quickly recovers, “The only part of the experiment! The rest is a brilliant success, even despite … my transgressions. And you’ll be delighted to know that I suspect I understand where we went wrong, where the problem is.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” Eduard props himself up, still half lying on Ivan. “How else do you explain your ability to read my emotions? Yet another level of implicature, but this time with body language. Not something you should be doing. It’s… an attachment issue. It forms very readily. In my case, and your case, too much so. This isn’t the first time, of course. It has been three - no, four. Four times now.”

“Four … but I don’t …”

“Five if you count the one where you’re asleep.” Eduard huffs, as though angry with himself. “Anyway, I guess we should start to consider other options. The most important part of this is you, I can’t allow myself to interfere any longer.” Darkly, he says, “I suppose, if I can’t keep my hands to myself, perhaps I ought to have them removed.”

Ivan looks up at him.

“That was a joke,” Eduard clarifies. But it isn’t very funny, and Ivan doesn’t laugh.

And computers aren’t supposed to understand humour, anyway.

Eduard continues. “I could also have someone else assigned to your case.” And then he reconsiders that almost immediately, with a sad grin. “No, I couldn’t. Of course I couldn’t!”

“If you can’t have me, nobody will?” Ivan guesses. He likes the thought of Eduard so terribly obsessed with him that he cannot keep his distance by any means. That makes Ivan special, more special than Eduard says. Ivan wants to be that kind of special. Ivan wants to be so special Eduard cannot finish his project because he’s too busy fucking it.

“At this point, I am so well entrenched in the subject matter that it seems a waste of time bringing a newcomer up to speed. Besides, we must have great talent from all our specimens. I won’t have you lagging behind for the sake of such silliness. No, I will think of something. I’ll have to fix it again.”

Ivan takes the opportunity when Eduard pauses for breath in his babbling to ask, “When did I meet you first?”

This throws Eduard for a total loop. Ivan clarifies: “I know I knew you from before we began this experiment. Tell me where from.”

“And how exactly do you know that? Through my reactions, not because I told you! It would be completely against -”

“You’re going to reset me anyway,” Ivan says coldly. “You might as well.”

Eduard gives him a sad look. “We were school boys,” he tells him. “You were two years older but you’d been held back to my year. We weren’t friends. I wasn’t the only one you bullied, there were more like me. First it was for homework, essays, assignments, then later for money.”

“Surely I never forced you into sex?” It doesn’t seem like the kind of person Ivan is. Then again, Ivan doesn’t know what kind of person Ivan is.

But Eduard shakes his head and Ivan is relieved. “That came after. After we graduated we went our separate ways and I didn’t see you until after all my studying and research had gotten me enough awards and grants for human trials. And _then_  you answered an ad in the paper, and the rest is history.”

“That doesn’t explain this,” Ivan protests, tracing Eduard’s lips with a finger.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. You seemed to have come to a few revelations about your miscreant youth, why you bullied people to make yourself feel better. You didn’t like the way people like me made you feel. That all came out in the sessions with our team’s psychologist.”

“And then?”

“And…” Eduard sighs. “And that’s when I took a personal interest in your case. I shouldn’t’ve done that.”

“You couldn’t help yourself,” Ivan finishes.

“I let it go too far! With that, I agree. Don’t be mistaken, under my guidance this project has advanced far beyond any of my wildest dreams. But … but this, has nothing to do with that. If anything it holds you back.”

“You mean it holds us both back,” he argues. “Me because computers don’t have sex, and you because you’re too invested in me to advance the project any further.”

“That’s what I’ll have to fix. But I’ll do that later. Rest now.”

Uneasily, Ivan sleeps, pillowed in Eduard’s arms, and has strange dreams of sex, between him and Eduard, ones that he’s not sure happened or were concocted in his restrained teenage lust. He dreams of the things Eduard’s body tells him, pressed up against his own, lies about love and half-truths about devotion.

Oh, Eduard is devoted, alright… but not to him.

–

Later that night he wakes in the bed alone to a dark room and Eduard’s silhouette in the doorway. “This won’t hurt,” Eduard promises, and sticks a needle in his upper arm.

Before he drifts off completely Ivan thinks he hears instructions to someone else, _get him on the gurney. No, it’ll take two of you, he’s a big man - we’ll wheel him in to the OR for the neurosurgeon -_

\- but Ivan cannot fight the sudden overwhelming drowsiness and is quickly pulled under a racing current of thoughtflow to a dark place where he does not even dream.

–

Ivan wakes up. He opens his eyes and looks around the room. There is the wardrobe, beside the door to the bathroom he shares with the adjacent unit. Next to it, a little footstool on which is set two books. One is his treatise on algorithm analysis.

The other is a mystery novel, which Eduard gave to him. Eduard is the lead scientist on his case and has been working tirelessly on Ivan. Ivan is not supposed to have this book, but Eduard slipped it to him anyway, saying “you shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t… but I just can’t say no to you.”

This book he has dog-eared. He is about three-quarters of the way through, just before the detective figures out the killer. He remembers reading it before lights out yesterday evening - he thinks perhaps it is the scientist character who committed the crime.

Standing on the rug in front of his bed is an awkward looking metal contraption. A tall rectangle balanced on four wheels. On the top there is a black dome - a camera. Below it a mouth made of a panel of black dots - one of the loudspeaker panels he sees everywhere, on his walls, in the bathroom, even in the shower. 

“Good morning, Ivan,” Eduard’s voice greets him through the contraption. “It is nine-am. I hope you’re ready for breakfast. Did you sleep well?”


End file.
